


Forwards

by Woodentrain



Series: Enough [3]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Extramarital Affairs, Fix-It of Sorts, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, POV Elio Perlman, but not cheating on each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:07:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23248231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Woodentrain/pseuds/Woodentrain
Summary: Oliver has finally said what he wants, and Elio wants the same thing.  But what are the next steps if they want to make their future together happen?
Relationships: Oliver/Elio Perlman
Series: Enough [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1659169
Comments: 63
Kudos: 106





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I still don't know what I'm doing with this series. I don't quite know why this is a new work in the series and not just another chapter of the previous one. I feel like I'm missing a load of tags I should be giving it. But I just want to post it.  
> Thank you so much for the comments and encouragement on the previous installment. It really is such a big motivation, and it has made me so so so so so so happy these past few days. Like you can't even imagine. I will respond to them all tomorrow!

I doze, stuck somewhere in the unsatisfying space between waking and sleeping. 

A hand rubs my shoulder, and a voice whispers in the dark. "Hey. You okay?"

"Sorry. Did I wake you?" 

He yawns. "Not really. I wasn't sleeping well anyway."

"Me neither."

"What's wrong?"

"Just…” What is wrong, exactly? I’m not sure how to explain it. “Just worried."

"About… us? This?"

"I- I guess so. Sort of. Just- I don't know what to do. Where we go from here. I mean, I know some of it, but I don't know how the rest of my life fits in with it."

Oliver inhales slowly. "Listen. Elio. If you're not sure about any of this, we don't have to. You're not under any obligation. I don't care what you might have said last night- you can change your mind. I won't be mad."

"You won't? I would be devastated if you changed your mind."

He tousles my hair. "I never said I wouldn't be devastated. Just that I wouldn't be mad. You can’t make decisions if you’re worried about making me angry. Although if you don't want to do any of this, then please, please don't let my impending devastation stop you from changing your mind. You can always say no. I just want you to-"

I roll to face him and kiss the words away.

"Shhh, you. I don't want to change my mind. I promise."

He nods. "Okay, then. Okay."

"I haven't changed my mind. I'm just trying to work out the… the logistics of it all. I don't know how to do what I have to do.

"I love my life in Cambridge. I love my job, my research, I love the students, the people I work with, the city. I don't know how to leave that all behind. And-" I can see that he's about to say something, so I put a finger on his lips to keep him silent- "Shush. I have to do this, Oliver. I will be happier with you, somewhere else, than I am with life as it is. But there are a lot of good things in my life right now and it's going to be a big adjustment."

"I could move."

"No, you couldn't. And I wouldn't ask you to. You're not the sort of person who would leave his kids to live on another continent. I'm not sure I could love someone who would."

"You make me sound like a much better person than I am."

“That’s exactly the sort of person you are, and I know it.”

“Maybe.”

Oliver is quiet for a while, and I resign myself to the fact that he’s fallen back to sleep, leaving me here awake with my thoughts.

His sigh tells me otherwise. “I don’t know what to say, Elio. To help. I don’t have any answers. I could give you a blow job? That might help you sleep, at least.” He says it brightly, but without conviction. Not that he doesn’t want to- he always wants to, it’s one of his favourite activities- but he doesn’t really think it’s the solution to my problems right now.

He’s right, of course. 

“No, but thanks for the offer. I just want…” 

What do I want? Maybe I want to talk, but I don’t know what I want to say or what I need to hear. My thoughts are spiralling, hope and joy all mixed up with confusion and fear. The future seems so big.

Oliver takes my hand in his. “I’m here.” 

How does he know me so well? He knows what I need better than I do myself. I don’t need to speak, or to listen, or to think. I just need to know that he’s here beside me. 

He rolls me away from him so that he can curl his body around mine, tugging me tight against him, and peace washes over me.

***

It’s morning. Oliver and I have switched places in our sleep, and now it’s me with my chest against his back. My nose rests at the nape of his neck, the perfect spot to appreciate the smell of his hair. I feel strangely relaxed, calm even, despite sleeping so poorly for most of the night. My erection presses against his back, but I don’t feel the need to do anything about it. I stroke down his arms, marvelling at the fine, fair hairs covering them, and his softness, soft and warm everywhere. Breathtaking. He may not be twenty-four any more, but he is still an exceptionally beautiful man. I surely don’t deserve him.

He stirs. “What time is it?”

“I have no idea. Still early, I think.” I’m too content to reach over and look at my watch.

“Mmm. Early? So we have time to…” He rolls to face me, and runs his hands down my back to my ass, pulling me close. I’m not surprised to find that he’s hard, too. 

We do have time. Not enough time together, there’s never enough time together, but enough for this. “I might be too sleepy.” 

“Well, I can kiss you back to sleep, then. Or not. Let’s see how things go.”

Afterwards we do sleep a little more, but then we have to wake up- and shower and pack and eat- getting ready to leave, to part ways for who knows how long.

Hopefully? Not long, this time. But we still haven’t even come close to working things out.

While Oliver zips up his suitcase, I take off the ring and place it on my palm along with the other ring, the one that I’m supposed to put on before I go home to my wife. 

Oliver turns around. “You ready? We should go get a cab.”

He sees my dilemma.

“Oh.”

“What should I do with it?”

“This one-” he picks up my wedding ring, a smooth gold band, and puts it back on the nightstand where I’ve been keeping it all weekend. “This one is not my business. It’s completely up to you whether you wear it now or not. And this one…” he takes the other ring, the one I’ve been wearing this weekend, between thumb and forefinger. “I don’t mind, really. You’ve said that you want to wear it, some time, and that you want all the things that that implies. But now?” He places the ring onto his own little finger, the only one it would fit on, and twirls it around absentmindedly. “It’s up to you. I can keep it for you, for now. Propose to you, someday, when the time’s right. Or you can keep it now, even if you don’t want to wear it.” 

“I do want to keep it.” 

He smiles as he puts it back into my hand and curls my fingers around it. “Do you want the box? I have it in my bag.”

“I ought to. It’d be safer there than in my pocket.”

I zip my wedding ring into a pocket in my wallet, for now.

A few hours later I board my flight, with a box stowed in my carryon. A box with a ring. A ring I never, never in a million years, imagined I would own. Oliver and I parted at the airport with a very discreet kiss, and I have the strangest, fuzzy feeling that I’m falling in love with him all over again. How is that even possible? It’s not as though I ever fell out of love with him in the first place. 

I’m happy. 

Happy, but also afraid. I’m not good at sleeping on planes at the best of times, and there’s no way I’m going to sleep now. My thoughts get more and more messy as the flight goes on.

I call him as soon as I land, just as I promised. It’s fine.

I call him again an hour later, when I’m sitting in my car ready to drive home. I don’t feel ready at all.

“Hello?” He sounds groggy. He was probably waiting for my previous call, and probably went to sleep straight afterwards.

I try to speak but the words choke in my throat.

“Elio?” More awake now. “What’s wrong?”

“Oliver, I- I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to do this. Am I supposed to go home, just walk in like nothing ever happened? Or just- just not go back? I can’t do that. And then how would I tell her? I don’t know how to do this, Oliver. I don’t know what to say. I want it to be done already.”

“Elio.” I hear a rustling- presumably his sheets rustling as he sits up in bed. “It’s okay. Breathe. Don’t panic. You’ll be fine.”

“I don’t know if I can do this.”

He sighs. “Elio. I can’t tell you what to do. If you decide that this isn’t the time to end your marriage, then don’t beat yourself up about it.”

“You don’t want me to?”

“Of course I want you to leave. Of course I do. But it has to be the right thing for you. I love you and I’m not going anywhere.”

“Would you mind if I went back home now and got into bed with her?”

“Yes, of course I’d mind. But I have to give you the chance to have second thoughts, or change your mind. Whatever you need.”

“I don’t want to change my mind. I just…” I realise I’m crying.

“Shhhhhh. It’s okay.” His voice, thousands of miles away, melts my panic into something less frightening. “I don’t know if you should drive home right now. Have you slept?”

“No.”

“Oh, Elio. I wish I could hold your hand right now.”

I smile through my hiccuppy crying.

“I think you should find a hotel, and drive home when you’ve had some rest.”

“There’s no point. I wouldn’t sleep anyway. And it’s not a long drive.”

“Maybe not. But I worry about you.”

_ He worries about me. _

That fact alone makes me feel like I can do  _ anything _ . I can drive for hours, I can have the difficult conversations I don’t want to have, I can break apart my marriage. I can start turning my life into something different.

“Don’t worry. Look- I have to go now. I have to do this. I can do it. I’ll call you later.”

He must be able to hear my new resolve. “Okay then. Promise me you’ll call me any time. Let me know how things go.”

“I promise.”

“Good night, Elio.”

“Good night, Oliver.”

I hang up.

It’s not night here. It’s morning, and there are things I have to do today.

I unclasp the chain I wear around my neck, have worn since the summer I met him. I take the ring from its box and admire it for a moment before slipping it onto the chain and fastening it back around my neck. It feels like the right thing to do. The chain is long enough to sit under my shirt, because being a Jew of discretion is the habit of a lifetime. But it’s there. Beside the star, above my heart, sits a circle, a promise, a future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on tumblr at [natures-cunning-ways](https://natures-cunning-ways.tumblr.com/).


	2. Surprise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A week later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A week after the events of the previous chapter...  
> So I realised that yesterday I didn't mark this as being 2 chapters, but I did rate it as M. Which chapter 1 definitely wasn't so I'm sorry if it disappointed. Chapter 2 is the Mature one.

The phone in my office rings just as I’m finishing lunch and getting ready to mark a stack of essays. I sigh and rub my eyes as the porter asks me to come and collect a parcel. I’ve hardly slept all week. Breaking up with Claire, moving out of my home… a lot has changed in a short time. I feel for the ring on its chain beneath my shirt- a comfort habit I’ve fast developed.

I can’t believe it’s only been just over a week since I saw Oliver.

I have no idea what the package might be- and I stop, stock-still, when I see him waiting in the porters’ lodge. 

Oliver.

“You-”

He grins. “You sounded like you might need a friend right now, so…” He opens his arms. 

_ So here I am. _

“I-” I shake my head in disbelief. I had thought him thousands of miles away, and yet he's here, standing in front of me.

“Come here.”

We embrace. Not too close, and not for too long. Not here, with students and tourists and other professors passing through. It likely wouldn’t matter, but still. Best to be careful- not to mention discreet, given the fact that I only left my wife a week ago. He whispers, “and I couldn’t bear to be separated from you any longer.”

I want to kiss him.

“You’re not a parcel. I was promised a parcel.” I try to look petulant, but it’s hard when you’re grinning so widely.

“No, I’m not, but I wanted to surprise you, so I asked to be a secret.”

“Come on.” I’ve recovered enough from my shock to form coherent words again. “Let’s go talk in my office."

Oliver grins at the porter and thanks him. Despite his reputation for grumpiness, he smiles back at Oliver, clearly won over by his charms. Why am I not surprised?

My office isn’t far away. Oliver has never visited me here before, and he looks around as we walk, saying little.

As soon as the door closes behind us, I burst into helpless, unexpected tears.

Oliver seems entirely nonplussed by this embarrassing development. He wraps his arms around me, pulls me close and cradles my head in his hand. I see no point in trying to stop, instead riding it out and letting my emotions and worries overwhelm me, just for a little while, just because he is a safe place for me.

_ The end of my marriage, and all it entails. The self-loathing I feel for ending a ten year relationship with someone who I didn’t treat as well as I should. The friends who will have to take sides. The realities of pulling apart the infrastructure of our now-defunct relationship: a home, a bank account, a whole life together. The temptation to let my guilt overwhelm me. _

_ And no less worrying, there’s the start of something new, with him. The joyous plans we made, which I don’t know how to turn into reality. I don’t want to move, but I can’t ask him to leave his children behind and move away to be with me. Sacrifices will have to be made- and I will do it, gladly, happy to pay that price for the much greater promised reward. But that doesn’t mean it will be easy. _

“Sorry.” I sniffle, and he hands me a tissue from his pocket so that I can wipe my nose. “I didn’t expect that to happen.”

“I sort of did. Why do you think I came here? It felt as though you needed me. I could see that you were barely holding things together.”

I’m mortified by my loss of control, and hide my face in his shoulder. His coat is wet because I cried into it. His scent is faint, buried beneath the smell of damp wool, but it comforts me all the same.

When I look at him I can see that he’s concerned. "Is this- I wanted to surprise you, but I really should've called. I didn't think. Is this okay?"

"Yes. Yes, of course. Very okay. It's just unexpected. And I guess all of this was building up, and…"

He takes my chin firmly in his hand and looks straight into my eyes. "Elio. We'll work this out. I promise."

I don't get a chance to respond. Suddenly something in his eyes turns dark, and he surges towards me and slams his mouth onto mine. It lacks finesse, certainly, but that hardly matters. I moan as I feel his tongue meet mine. He pulls me closer, tighter, uncomfortably so- not that I mind.

But this is neither the time nor the place. I break free of him for long enough to say this, but only get as far as  _ Oliver, we should _ \- before he kisses me again. My reservations are gone- I'm distracted by his mouth, by his hand unbuckling my belt, by him crowding me across the room until I'm backed up against my desk.

Oliver wastes no time in dropping my pants to the floor, and as I wriggle my feet to kick them away I kick off my shoes and shuffle out of my socks too. I very much like where this is going.. 

"Your door locked?" 

_ Shit.  _ I shake my head and lean further back on the desk as he scampers across the room to lock the door before returning. 

He unbuttons my shirt, but only partially because he quickly gets bored and focuses his attention,  _ his hands, oh god,  _ on the skin he can reach. My back and chest, through my shirt and under it and then resting on my hips, pinning me to the desk while I try to undress him.

His voice is low and rough. "You have no idea how much I want you right now, Elio. I can't stop thinking about you, like this. I've been jerking off like a horny teenager all week. I feel like I'm finally allowed to want this, you, and I can't get enough. Just the thought of you…” He moans deep in his throat as I slip a hand into his underwear. “Nobody else has ever made me feel this way. You drive me crazy." 

Our encounters have been limited and infrequent, so there's always a sense of urgency. It’s only to be expected. But he's right- this is not the same urgency. There's something new between us now.

He left his suitcase by the door, and he leaves me panting on the desk while he unzips it and throws clothes onto the floor, searching for something. When he returns he drops a bottle of lube onto the pile of essays I am supposed to be marking right now, and I love it, love the way that he's here, doing this to me.

I lie back and let him finger me, spread out wantonly on my desk, while his other hand touches my cock, and this is more all I need, much more than enough. 

He stops. I watch him, desperate, grasping at his skin while he puts on a condom before covering my mouth to stifle my moans as he pushes inside me. He pulls my whole body closer- it's deeper,  _ better,  _ I can feel him everywhere, and it delights me. 

"Can you be quiet?" He moves his hand from my mouth.

"I don't know." To whisper takes all of my effort.

"Try." 

I do. I concentrate on breathing in, out, in time with Oliver, who fucks me in long,  _ impossibly _ long strokes. Every time he  _ almost  _ pulls out, I become more frantic, more desperate. He pulls my hair _. Please don't stop, Oliver, don't stop.  _ I hope I'm whispering. Am I whispering? In my head I'm shouting, but Oliver doesn't stop me so it must be alright, and everything about him feels so good. I can't believe he's here. It’s too much.

I manage to keep almost-quiet when I come, by biting my lip and scrunching my eyes closed and squeezing my hand around his, where it rests on the desk by my hip. Oliver squeezes mine back, crushing, hissing a breath through his teeth in his own determination to be quiet, before collapsing forwards to stop his knees from giving way completely.

I look up at the ceiling with a dazed grin. I probably look like an idiot, but I don't care.  _ I love this,  _ I think.  _ I love you. _

The first thing he says when he gets his breath back is, "This is your desk?"

I laugh. "Fuck, I hope so, after what we just did here. And well, this is my office. Whose else would it be?"

"It's just… it's very neat. Where's all the clutter?"

"I don't like clutter."

"Sometimes I wonder if I know you at all, Elio Perlman."

He leans over me and onto me, kisses me while he presses his body over mine just the right amount. I can feel his weight- the comfort of it, the power of his body- without being squashed and breathless.

Oliver whines. "I don't want to be here."

"Oh?" That doesn't sound good.

He mumbles groggily. "Right now, I need to be in bed beside you. I need to feel all of your skin. I need to doze with you and feel your warmth under the sheets."

"Mmm." I tilt my head back, as best I can given that I'm already flat on the desk, in the hope that he'll kiss my neck. He does. "Well- hey, that tickles-" I swat at his shoulder and he laughs but doesn't stop what he's doing. "We should get dressed and go somewhere we can be more comfortable. I live in college now. So my rooms are about two minutes' walk from here."

"Yeah?" He sticks out the top of his tongue and licks up to my ear. I shiver.

"Yeah. Yes, so, um. Where was I? Oh. We should go. To bed. I have a bed near here."

Oliver reaches for the floor and hands me my clothes. "Come on, then. Let's go."

Once we're dressed I open the door right in the faces of two students who are standing outside, signing up for supervisions on the sheet blu-tacked to my door. Oliver is… very close behind me. 

I probably look like a man who just got fucked on his desk. Oliver still looks pink and rumpled. I am mortified. 

But Oliver assures me, when we reach my rooms, that  _ you really were very quiet, don't worry, nobody heard anything, it's fine. _

I'm sure he's right, but I wish I’d taken the time to button my shirt up properly. 

I have to give a supervision at four, but the joy of living in college is that my office is only a few minutes away from my bed. My bed, where I undress him under the covers and spend a happy hour, warm and content. Some talking, a little kissing, but mostly dozing in and out of sleep.

When I shower and get dressed to return to my office, I’m still reeling from the afternoon’s events. I’m not typically a fan of sex on furniture other than a bed- I find that the discomfort of a hard surface and the problems of dealing with height-related logistics outweigh the thrill of wanting each other too urgently to make it to bed. But this was different, somehow, and I don’t mind that my back is bruised from lying on a pen. Thank goodness the cap was on, or my shirt would have been covered in ink. Though honestly? I wouldn’t have minded that either.

Oliver sleeps soundly in my bed, dead to the world. Unsurprising, since he came straight here from the airport. This time yesterday he was in New England, going about his morning and thinking about me, preparing to fly across an ocean to be with me. 

I cannot bear to leave him.

_ It's only an hour,  _ I tell myself _. He won't even wake up. He won't know you're gone. _

So. I have to go. I need to leave enough time before my students arrive, to tidy my desk and open the windows to air out the room.

I leave a note on my pillow in case he wakes up, and kiss him on the forehead. Sometimes I am embarrassed by how much I love him. 

He is still, always has been, the best person I know. The worries, the uncertainty, the years of waiting? He is worth it. 

I leave him sleeping peacefully, smiling to myself as I close the door softly behind me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Off topic but- I may post a silly thing I'm working on which is currently entitled "The untitiled erectile dysfunction fic nobody asked for." It needs a better title. Please send me all your erection related puns to inspire me.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr at [natures-cunning-ways](https://natures-cunning-ways.tumblr.com/).


End file.
